Newt Gingrich laid a stark attack on his rival in the run-up to Florida’s “winner -take-all” Republican presidential primary Tuesday, accusing Mitt Romney of being no different than President Obama and suggesting the frontrunner will be a threat to religious freedom.

As Romney seeks to tighten his grip on the Republican presidential nomination, charging ahead by double-digits in most late polling in Florida, Gingrich told Fox News on Monday that Romney’s decision while Massachusetts governor to cut Medicaid funding for health care services that benefited Jewish and Catholic facilities demonstrated that he has little respect for religion. He added that the trend is for a secular state assault on people of faith.

“I think Governor Romney is extraordinarily insensitive to religious freedom in America and the Obama administration is clearly engaged in a war on religion,” said Gingrich, a converted Catholic.

In what may be the strangest market indicator ever, a blogger found that the amount of laughter recorded in the official transcripts of Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meetings from 2000 to 2006 correlates almost perfectly with the rise in housing prices taking place at the time.

A particular series of side-splitting meetings by the central bank in 2006 marked the very top of the housing bubble.

The blog, The Daily Stag Hunt, tracked the times “laughter” was recorded by the Fed’s stenographer during the FOMC meetings. In 2001, the FOMC averaged 16.5 moments of guffaws per meeting. In 2006, there were, on average, 44 outbreaks of laughter.